Solidarity with protestors condemning racial violence and calling for reform

The recent senseless murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Milwaukee’s Joel Acevedo highlight the ongoing racial violence Black Americans suffer daily. The scourge of state violence in the forms of police brutality and lack of justice for crimes against black bodies are only two of many manifestations of our country’s deep history of anti-black racism. The disproportionate burden of sickness and death African Americans have borne due to structural inequities during the COVID-19 pandemic adds to the body count of preventable deaths.

The Department of African and African Diaspora Studies was founded to elevate the voices, stories, value, human dignity and beauty of people of African descent, long suppressed and negated. As we collectively grieve those we have lost, we will continue to stand with those who resist the erasure of black people and their voices.